Grrl Power #717 – The long foot of the law

Phew! Been a while since I drew Max. Luckily I still remember how. When I get to the rest of the team it’s a fair bet I may have to refer to old pages to remember some eye colors here and there. I assume Arianna has blue eyes, but it’s probably best if I check.

As to whatever situation this is, I’m not entirely sure what the deal is, like why Max is soloing this guy. Probably because she’s the fastest mover and she can generally handle stuff without backup, but that’s a combination for falling into a trap, so she tries not to go in without any backup if she can help it. Without Sydney to handle rapid ferrying, the next fastest mode of transport available to them is the Osprey. That’s a lot faster than loading everyone into a convoy of black SUV’s, but still much slower than Max or Sydney’s airspeed. Especially with Sydney’s recent upgrade.

Yeah, I was gonna say, I’m pretty sure that at this point, the majority of what Maxima wears is infused with nanocarbon alloys and other supersciency fabrics that prevent any embarrassing ‘wardrobe malfunctions’ and ‘PR disasters’. ;)

Don’t forget that Maxima’s abilities extend to a shielding layer that can protect her clothes, and some gear. While what she wears may be slightly more resilient, there isn’t too much reason for her standard gear to be over-built.

Somehow I think that Max’s anger at Sydney will be tempered by her relief at getting her back… Remember, Sydney didn’t get left behind because of stupidity… she was protecting the team. Normally I’d say lots of face to boob hugging and tears shed by Max were forthcoming but Max doesn’t do tears… much. Of course Dabs will be jealous of Sydney… Try as she might, she can’t get Max to hug her that way. That being said, I bet the last words of Max’s welcome home speech will be something along the lines of “DON’T. DO. THAT. AGAIN!!! EVER!!!

Okay, still a super hero comic and all, and not knowing this guy’s powers, but assuming he is no Vehemence and basically is not an imminent threat of anything to Maxima, let alone death or serious bodily/greaty bodily harm, this is very much against the whole “we are law enforcement” talks from before. She’s got the drop on him and this an assault/terroristic threatening at this point, and for those who know true threat analysis, Maxima CLEARLY is capable of carrying out the express threat here.

We’re lacking context. The guy may not be in Vehemence’s weight class, but that doesn’t mean he wasn’t putting up a passable resistance up until the point we the reader’s attention sets in on the scene.

Maxima just kicked that guy through a concrete building and left a crater in the ground, and he’s still getting up. He might not be in Max’s weight class, but he’s clearly a little too dangerous to leave for the locals to deal with when Max has to take care of other things.

This, very much so this. We dont know what lead up to this moment, but the fact that he just went through two cement walls and was pushing rubble off of himself proves he aint exactly a normy getting roughed up. So in reality, its closer to the average cop takedown scaled up to the perps level of durability than police brutality. Though again, Max, we talked about this. Stop punching people through buildings! You just like, a week ago, spelled it out for sydney. Not only is that super dangerous to potential bystanders, its also expensive as heck, as unlike the streets, someone other than the government probably owns that building. Arrrgh, its like she went from denying the world works like comics to explicitly showing us THE WORLD WORKS LIKE COMICS!

Part of it is that I take it as a death threat. True, she doesn’t say amputate his head, but face is pretty much the same. And the only context that matters is his capability now, not what he’s done before (though that can help assess what he may be able to do now). Artistically, it looks like he is not getting up without Maxima allowing it- no problem there. But that being the case, doesn’t matter if she is SWAT, now that he’s down and unless he currently poses a threat that warrants lethal force, then she has no more right to use than a civilian (non-cop in this sense, not non-military). Retaliation by law enforcement certainly happens across jurisdictions, but is never legal. Self defense and defense of others/property/anything else is distinguished from retaliation in all jurisdictions.

That said, admittedly you can threaten lethal force without intent to use it to prevent imminent non-lethal force, but again, the question is if he even presents that AT THIS MOMENT. So subjective on my part, maybe, but even if he survived everything Max did there, the way he’s shown now doesn’t present him as an imminent threat of any force against Max or others.

Granted, having Dabbler’s yin available could have avoided all this. :/

Not really. Law enforcement has rules about when lethal force is justified. If this guy is a clear and present danger, then Maxima is fully justified in taking him out permanently. Her”threat” of decapitation is really just her doing a courtesy to the bad guy, giving him one last opportunity to make the right decision.

Then again, we don’t know what sort of atypical threat he poses. If he’s capable of regenerating (and we don’t know how long it takes him to do so), then that isn’t necessarily a lethal threat, so much as a threat of a great deal of pain and suffering and high inconvenience.

Maybe not. Since this guy is past guns, all she’s got is “see this fist? It will soon meet your head if you don’t stop resisting arrest.” Guns are a threat to normies. Threats to supers have to be vocalized.

I think the issue most of you are missing on this, is that even though he is clearly weaker than Maxima, he is also CLEARLY strong. Since she states that he was on a rampage, that means he COULD still attempt to kill innocent civilians. Maxima is just making it clear that should he not surrender immediately she will not allow said threat to continue to exist. Which in a normal police context is….both a bit dangerous and too NICE. SWAT doesnt do things by half, you take hostages/try to kill a bunch of people, they kill you. period. up to that point you have a chance to surrender, you cross that line, they will end you to ENSURE the innocent people are safe.

Movie yes, but Carol Danvers has been Captain Marvel since 2012, and had similar costumes during her time as Ms. Marvel *not just her famous black with lightning bolt costume) and War Bird (Binary costumes tended to be a little more monochrome though);

“Read them their Miranda Rights.”
“This is Miranda. Miranda is a psychic weasel. You have the right to remain silent. It won’t matter, Miranda will peal your brain like a grape and squeeze out the juicy details. Everything you know will be used.”
“You have the right to an attorney. Miranda will check him for details as well. If you cannot afford an attorney, sorry, the ACLU has successfully argued that assigning one to you is hazardous to its constituency, so tough luck.”
“Miranda can see that you understood these rights while your mind was still unshattered.”

The lotus flower or the kinder version of mindripping in the schlockversr is simpler. Make the person fully believe they won, the secrets will pour out into the simulation. Now, being snapped back into reality might not be very kind, but that’s easy to solve by running a life sim for the person’s mapped brain. You get the secrets, the subject goes home, the mind copy you made gets to live a pleasant life.

and given Maxima’s comment she is clearly talking to a guy who already knows about aliens…otherwise the implication is she is either A about to reveal top secret information off handedly or some point in Sydney’s as yet unknown time skip aliens were revealed to the public and someone had a rampage freak out over that…and his facial similarity is a case of artist same face mistake.

Do people not read the actual words in the comic? She said he had been on a rampage, she probably did all the normal law-y crap before the fight started, he decided to add ‘resisting arrest’ to the charges

I’m gonna go with this: Sydney gets suspicious of Harem for something, and cooks up “A Cunning Plan!” ™ and uses that security level in a trap to reveal Harem as a double agent (or maybe even a Triple!)

We got like, one panel of her relaxing with a drink in hand at the restaurant before the bad guys showed up…so yeah, it has happened. And then Anvil got crumbs on her crumb shelf, and everyone got some debris everywhere else, too…

Solusandra probably means because of the massive amount of damage she’s causing while calling that guy an idiot for going on a rampage.

But honestly there’s missing context here that we don’t know about so it’s probable that he had been causing even more damage and mayhem elsewhere where it was populated, and Maxima ‘relocated’ him to an abandoned warehouse area with a punch or kick or something. Making the use of force proportionate, and the threat of squishing his face into nothing is a way to make sure he surrenders quickly. She’s big on using fear to prevent other supers from putting up any more of a fight than is necessary. Usually it seems to work well, unless it’s someone like Vehemence (or a non-Super like Sciona), in which case the results usually go south pretty badly. But it’s not like it’s illegal for a police officer to threaten violence if an armed suspect does not surrender (and by armed, I’m including having Super-powers in this context).

I always just assumed that comic artists had character reference sheets for all of the characters that they’ve made. you know you might consider starting to put one together as you go, it would be a big help.

Yeah, the “easy” option is only easy if you ignore the resulting paperwork. I mean, does Max have to file environment impact reports whenever she uses that weapon? We know there’s at least one member of the ARC team capable of leaving a trail of radioactive contamination… can’t be the only one.

1. We still don’t know what Maxima’s top speed is.
2. Technically, Sydney’s top speed is Mach 16.
3. Sydney has greater range than Maxima.

According to Altus’ explanation, the Aetherium Causeway creates a wormhole tunnel between two given points. That tunnel vastly shortens the distance between those two points. It does not, however, speed up anything traveling through it. Sydney still transits the Aetherium Causeway at Mach 16 at most.

4. Goto Line 1. (Yes, that’s a BASIC computer command. *waves cane at the whippersnappers* That’s right, I was coding in BASIC before y’all were a giggle in yer momma’s heart and a gleam in yer daddy’s eyes! …Just don’t ask me to do Visual BASIC, yeesh…)

(Even if he didn’t think to mention it sped up whatever traveled through the Causeway, we would have seen Sydney emerging at high speed. We did not, she did not comment on any such thing, and that means she was simply flying whatever speed she chose when entering the nifty psychedelic tunnel.)

I’m betting that Sydney IS faster than Maxima now, although she does not yet have the same reflexes so while Sydney might be able to beat Maxima in a straight up race, Maxima can make turns on a dime a lot easier than Sydney because Sydney’s perception might not be as sped up as Maxima’s is (and Maxima has already shown her perception and agility is enough to EFFORTLESSLY pluck a bullet out of the air before it hits someone at close range.

Also, you can’t entirely rule out that while she’s going through the causeway she’s going at an extreme speed, because some wormholes in fiction do have you basically go through at immense speeds, such as the Ancients’ Stargate, which takes matter and changes it into some sort of energy capable of moving at a faster-than-light velocity without causing time travel (usually) then changes it back once out the other side.

I didn’t make this up though – that was from Samantha Carter in a few episodes, and also from Daniel in the movie where you see what he sees as he steps through the stargate for the first time.

So…. if the Aetherium Causeway is a wormhole like THAT, then she might be moving insanely fast, but only while in the causeway, and as soon as she’s out, she immediately is shunted back to a normal speed along with some sort of inertial dampener that prevents the sudden acceleration and then deceleration from killing her.

If it’s like a Star Trek wormhole then yeah, I’m totally with you on what you said.

That’s fair. Just because the orb is using causeways as a shortcut across vast regions of space doesn’t mean that they aren’t still capable of extreme velocity through normal space, let alone velocity that can top Maxima. This is possible Nth tech we’re talking about here and while Maxima is powerful, we haven’t really seen indications of that level of power yet. Good call on the reflexes tho, I don’t think Syd’s capsaicin-infused hyperactivity is enough top that.

If the orbs are a supertech ship, which have been proposed as a theory, it is quite possible that the athmospheric top speed is limited by “software”, just like some cars have their top speed capped at 250 km/h. As travelling within athmosphere at speeds significantly over Mach 5 requires superhero physics to not cause environmental devastation to the surrounding area.

Except, Sydney was shown traveling the same speed in space as she was traveling through atmosphere. And there *should* be a limiter preventing someone from flying at Mach 16, because the amount of damage done by traveling that fast through an atmosphere can cause significant damage in one’s wake. And there was no limit on her speed in an atmopshere.

if i remember correctly, wasn’t that BEFORE she leveled up her fly orb to Mach 16? so she was still trying to get to the moon at “only” Mach 4?, and Yes, going that fast in normal atmosphere… at GROUND level (give or take a few hundred feet, you know what i mean), in an Urban area… definitely an OMFG NO!… but at 30,000 ft. while over open ocean like going from San Fran to Hawaii… no problem

Mach 4 is insanely much faster than you think, for a spherical object, but doable without damage. 30000 ft should be doable, but bear the speed where you need superhero physics. It’s not so much a question of friction, but of shockwave compressing air and causing it to heat up enough to emit visible light. There is a reason ALL hypersonic vehicles are very pointy, and it is to push the shockwave out to the sides instead of in front…

My personal head-canon is ‘Maxima managed to fly across the city faster than a teleporter could escape’. So (to me) Sydney simply cannot outperform Maxima in most normal circumstances, even if her top speed is above Max’s now.

The one exception would be if there was another cross-country chase, like when they were pursuing Sciona.

Of course my headcanon breaks down when analysed too closely (Maxima failed to stop Sciona teleporting away, for instance). But it is hard to shake a personal conviction, like that.

The reason why Maxi managed to get back to ARC-Q before the Daphne’s could escape, was partially due to the TV-delay: Maxi was already half way back before they saw her leave
The reason she managed to Maxi-wedgie Bodie was because of misdirection: she feinted towards Berry (who managed to *VORP* out) butt went to where Bodie was instead (who thought she was safe in the room next door)

Maxima did not fly across the city faster than a teleporter could escape, if you mean Harem.

Re-read what happened. Harem wasn’t trying to escape when Maxima first started to leave the scene of the robbery. She was busy watching the TV while Anvil was telling her how what she was doing with the practical joke was stupid. THEN Maxima showed up. If Harem had wanted to, she could have already left before Maxima had shown up. And then Maxima only ‘got’ Harem because she wedgied a DIFFERENT Harem.

As I said it breaks down under close examination (albeit that I can argue various points, but don’t feel inclined). Hence why I point it out as being head-canon. I can make up whatever weird s**t I want to in here.

Ah the good old days of snap action toggle switched and the spring loaded write switch that you had to hold down for at least 3 seconds to ensure a write.
Everything was OP Codes. It was sheer luxury latter on when we got a Basic Assembler – I think I still have my WATBIS manual kicking around somewhere.

I salute the sacrifice of all you crazy-smart people who brought us through the dark ages of punch cards and assembly, into the light of managed memory and IDEs.

I suspect many of your peers now huddle in the corners of the retirement home playing solitaire, snarling at anyone who comes too close. “The punch cards, they are holesy, they cuts our fingers precious! They scrambles our call stacks! We hates them, but we must have them!”

Whoa, did Maxima just almost commit a breach of security? Tsk tsk, LtC, no letting classified info slip in the heat of the moment! Pretty sure the public hasn’t been made aware of aliens or paranormal entities yet.

We had a book-rack by the front door. It contained a copy of the Book of Mormon and several issues of Watchtower. Depending on what the nicely dressed people on the step were displaying, you would take the other in hand…

Very likely (we know that personal cloaking technology (of the disguising variety) is common amongst aliens species on Earth. There must be something similar for them to get down to the surface and cloaking or disguising their ships requires the least divergence from the known technologies.

Not that has been mentioned. The comic is set in the last year that the space shuttle flew though. So depending on what month we are up to that would have been one option. Although I imagine that the US had developed its military alternative before that stage. As its missions were highly classified that easily makes it plausible that it was assigned to Archon in full or in part.

Reading that, I thought ‘Subtle? More like heavy’, but re-reading it there is nothing actually pointing to that. But the weight of previous scenes, and how protective Maxima is of Sydney (like a younger sister or daughter) is what lends it the weight I felt. This is highly consistent with how I would have expected Maxima to behave, and feels just right.

I think it may also be pre-emptive damage control. Max has apparently gotten word previously that Sydney was on her way, and has had many hours (days?) to move from worry and relief into the realization of what a PR fiasco a homecoming is likely to be, especially if not in a very private location.

It did look odd to me, at first glance, but only because it is such an unusual pose. Once I contextualised it, as Maxima bending down, to hold her fist in front of the villain, then it gelled.

Doing a fresh look at it now though, the only other point is that her eyes (at my default resolution and blurred vision) seem to be pupil/iris-less. Probably an artifact of the distance she is set back from the villain’s point of view. But I can see how that might be unsettling.

Point is that the pupils don’t stand out enough for me to register them (ignoring things like zooming in).

Not that my blurry vision should be taken as indicative of what an average person might see. However, as CaptRory did not specify what seemed ‘weird’, my exploration of the things I found odd about the image may have narrowed it down for CaptRory.

Here’s one guess why Maxima is soloing the poor sod: She needed to vent some frustration at losing Halo. As Stoic as Maxima is, anyone would be a bit uneasy when losing a pupil/student. How’s my guess? :o

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